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_ 'I don't think he could do more than perhaps look upon that
straight path. He seemed to have been puzzled by what he saw, for
he interrupted himself in his narrative more than once to exclaim,
"He nearly slipped from me there. I could not make him out. Who
was he?" And after glaring at me wildly he would go on, jubilating
and sneering. To me the conversation of these two across the creek
appears now as the deadliest kind of duel on which Fate looked on
with her cold-eyed knowledge of the end. No, he didn't turn Jim's
soul inside out, but I am much mistaken if the spirit so utterly out
of his reach had not been made to taste to the full the bitterness of
that contest. These were the emissaries with whom the world he
had renounced was pursuing him in his retreat--white men from
"out there" where he did not think himself good enough to live.
This was all that came to him--a menace, a shock, a danger to his
work. I suppose it is this sad, half-resentful, half-resigned feeling,
piercing through the few words Jim said now and then, that puzzled
Brown so much in the reading of his character. Some great men
owe most of their greatness to the ability of detecting in those they
destine for their tools the exact quality of strength that matters for
their work; and Brown, as though he had been really great, had a
satanic gift of finding out the best and the weakest spot in his
victims. He admitted to me that Jim wasn't of the sort that can be
got over by truckling, and accordingly he took care to show himself
as a man confronting without dismay ill-luck, censure, and disaster.
The smuggling of a few guns was no great crime, he pointed out.
As to coming to Patusan, who had the right to say he hadn't come
to beg? The infernal people here let loose at him from both banks
without staying to ask questions. He made the point brazenly, for,
in truth, Dain Waris's energetic action had prevented the greatest
calamities; because Brown told me distinctly that, perceiving the
size of the place, he had resolved instantly in his mind that as soon
as he had gained a footing he would set fire right and left, and begin
by shooting down everything living in sight, in order to cow and
terrify the population. The disproportion of forces was so great that
this was the only way giving him the slightest chance of attaining
his ends--he argued in a fit of coughing. But he didn't tell Jim this.
As to the hardships and starvation they had gone through, these
had been very real; it was enough to look at his band. He made, at
the sound of a shrill whistle, all his men appear standing in a row
on the logs in full view, so that Jim could see them. For the killing
of the man, it had been done--well, it had--but was not this war,
bloody war--in a corner? and the fellow had been killed cleanly,
shot through the chest, not like that poor devil of his lying now in
the creek. They had to listen to him dying for six hours, with his
entrails torn with slugs. At any rate this was a life for a life. . . .
And all this was said with the weariness, with the recklessness of a
man spurred on and on by ill-luck till he cares not where he runs.
When he asked Jim, with a sort of brusque despairing frankness,
whether he himself--straight now--didn't understand that when
"it came to saving one's life in the dark, one didn't care who else
went--three, thirty, three hundred people"--it was as if a demon
had been whispering advice in his ear. "I made him wince," boasted
Brown to me. "He very soon left off coming the righteous over me.
He just stood there with nothing to say, and looking as black as
thunder--not at me--on the ground." He asked Jim whether he
had nothing fishy in his life to remember that he was so damnedly
hard upon a man trying to get out of a deadly hole by the first means
that came to hand--and so on, and so on. And there ran through
the rough talk a vein of subtle reference to their common blood,
an assumption of common experience; a sickening suggestion of
common guilt, of secret knowledge that was like a bond of their
minds and of their hearts.
'At last Brown threw himself down full length and watched Jim
out of the corners of his eyes. Jim on his side of the creek stood
thinking and switching his leg. The houses in view were silent, as
if a pestilence had swept them clean of every breath of life; but
many invisible eyes were turned, from within, upon the two men
with the creek between them, a stranded white boat, and the body
of the third man half sunk in the mud. On the river canoes were
moving again, for Patusan was recovering its belief in the stability
of earthly institutions since the return of the white lord. The right
bank, the platforms of the houses, the rafts moored along the
shores, even the roofs of bathing-huts, were covered with people
that, far away out of earshot and almost out of sight, were straining
their eyes towards the knoll beyond the Rajah's stockade. Within
the wide irregular ring of forests, broken in two places by the sheen
of the river, there was a silence. "Will you promise to leave the
coast?" Jim asked. Brown lifted and let fall his hand, giving everything
up as it were--accepting the inevitable. "And surrender your arms?" Jim
went on. Brown sat up and glared across. "Surrender our arms! Not till
you come to take them out of our stiff hands. You think I am gone
crazy with funk? Oh no! That and the rags I stand in is all I have
got in the world, besides a few more breechloaders on board; and I
expect to sell the lot in Madagascar, if I ever get so far--begging
my way from ship to ship."
'Jim said nothing to this. At last, throwing away the switch he
held in his hand, he said, as if speaking to himself, "I don't know
whether I have the power." . . . "You don't know! And you wanted
me just now to give up my arms! That's good, too," cried Brown;
"Suppose they say one thing to you, and do the other thing to me."
He calmed down markedly. "I dare say you have the power, or
what's the meaning of all this talk?" he continued. "What did you
come down here for? To pass the time of day?"
' "Very well," said Jim, lifting his head suddenly after a long
silence. "You shall have a clear road or else a clear fight." He turned
on his heel and walked away.
'Brown got up at once, but he did not go up the hill till he had
seen Jim disappear between the first houses. He never set his eyes
on him again. On his way back he met Cornelius slouching down
with his head between his shoulders. He stopped before Brown.
"Why didn't you kill him?" he demanded in a sour, discontented
voice. "Because I could do better than that," Brown said with an
amused smile. "Never! never!" protested Cornelius with energy.
"Couldn't. I have lived here for many years." Brown looked up at
him curiously. There were many sides to the life of that place in
arms against him; things he would never find out. Cornelius slunk
past dejectedly in the direction of the river. He was now leaving his
new friends; he accepted the disappointing course of events with a
sulky obstinacy which seemed to draw more together his little yellow
old face; and as he went down he glanced askant here and there,
never giving up his fixed idea.
'Henceforth events move fast without a check, flowing from the
very hearts of men like a stream from a dark source, and we see Jim
amongst them, mostly through Tamb' Itam's eyes. The girl's eyes
had watched him too, but her life is too much entwined with his:
there is her passion, her wonder, her anger, and, above all, her fear
and her unforgiving love. Of the faithful servant, uncomprehending
as the rest of them, it is the fidelity alone that comes into play; a
fidelity and a belief in his lord so strong that even amazement is
subdued to a sort of saddened acceptance of a mysterious failure.
He has eyes only for one figure, and through all the mazes of bewilderment
he preserves his air of guardianship, of obedience, of care.
'His master came back from his talk with the white men, walking
slowly towards the stockade in the street. Everybody was rejoiced
to see him return, for while he was away every man had been afraid
not only of him being killed, but also of what would come after.
Jim went into one of the houses, where old Doramin had retired,
and remained alone for a long time with the head of the Bugis
settlers. No doubt he discussed the course to follow with him then,
but no man was present at the conversation. Only Tamb' Itam,
keeping as close to the door as he could, heard his master say, "Yes.
I shall let all the people know that such is my wish; but I spoke to
you, O Doramin, before all the others, and alone; for you know my
heart as well as I know yours and its greatest desire. And you know
well also that I have no thought but for the people's good." Then
his master, lifting the sheeting in the doorway, went out, and he,
Tamb' Itam, had a glimpse of old Doramin within, sitting in the
chair with his hands on his knees, and looking between his feet.
Afterwards he followed his master to the fort, where all the
principal Bugis and Patusan inhabitants had been summoned for a
talk. Tamb' Itam himself hoped there would be some fighting. "What
was it but the taking of another hill?" he exclaimed regretfully.
However, in the town many hoped that the rapacious strangers
would be induced, by the sight of so many brave men making ready
to fight, to go away. It would be a good thing if they went away.
Since Jim's arrival had been made known before daylight by the
gun fired from the fort and the beating of the big drum there, the
fear that had hung over Patusan had broken and subsided like a
wave on a rock, leaving the seething foam of excitement, curiosity,
and endless speculation. Half of the population had been ousted
out of their homes for purposes of defence, and were living in the
street on the left side of the river, crowding round the fort, and in
momentary expectation of seeing their abandoned dwellings on the
threatened bank burst into flames. The general anxiety was to see
the matter settled quickly. Food, through Jewel's care, had been
served out to the refugees. Nobody knew what their white man
would do. Some remarked that it was worse than in Sherif Ali's
war. Then many people did not care; now everybody had something
to lose. The movements of canoes passing to and fro between the
two parts of the town were watched with interest. A couple of Bugis
war-boats lay anchored in the middle of the stream to protect the
river, and a thread of smoke stood at the bow of each; the men in
them were cooking their midday rice when Jim, after his interviews
with Brown and Doramin, crossed the river and entered by the
water-gate of his fort. The people inside crowded round him, so that
he could hardly make his way to the house. They had not seen
him before, because on his arrival during the night he had only
exchanged a few words with the girl, who had come down to the
landing-stage for the purpose, and had then gone on at once to join
the chiefs and the fighting men on the other bank. People shouted
greetings after him. One old woman raised a laugh by pushing her
way to the front madly and enjoining him in a scolding voice to see
to it that her two sons, who were with Doramin, did not come to
harm at the hands of the robbers. Several of the bystanders tried to
pull her away, but she struggled and cried, "Let me go. What is
this, O Muslims? This laughter is unseemly. Are they not cruel,
bloodthirsty robbers bent on killing?" "Let her be," said Jim, and
as a silence fell suddenly, he said slowly, "Everybody shall be safe."
He entered the house before the great sigh, and the loud murmurs
of satisfaction, had died out.
'There's no doubt his mind was made up that Brown should have
his way clear back to the sea. His fate, revolted, was forcing his
hand. He had for the first time to affirm his will in the face of
outspoken opposition. "There was much talk, and at first my master
was silent," Tamb' Itam said. "Darkness came, and then I lit the
candles on the long table. The chiefs sat on each side, and the lady
remained by my master's right hand."
'When he began to speak, the unaccustomed difficulty seemed
only to fix his resolve more immovably. The white men were now
waiting for his answer on the hill. Their chief had spoken to him in
the language of his own people, making clear many things difficult
to explain in any other speech. They were erring men whom suffering
had made blind to right and wrong. It is true that lives had been
lost already, but why lose more? He declared to his hearers, the
assembled heads of the people, that their welfare was his welfare,
their losses his losses, their mourning his mourning. He looked
round at the grave listening faces and told them to remember that
they had fought and worked side by side. They knew his courage . . .
Here a murmur interrupted him . . . And that he had never deceived
them. For many years they had dwelt together. He loved the land and
the people living in it with a very great love. He was ready to answer
with his life for any harm that should come to them if the white men
with beards were allowed to retire. They were evil-doers, but their
destiny had been evil, too. Had he ever advised them ill? Had his words
ever brought suffering to the people? he asked. He believed that it
would be best to let these whites and their followers go with their
lives. It would be a small gift. "I whom you have tried and found
always true ask you to let them go." He turned to Doramin. The old
nakhoda made no movement. "Then," said Jim, "call in Dain Waris,
your son, my friend, for in this business I shall not lead." ' _
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